Brand Academy in Search of Indian Marketing Talent

According to a recent research by FutureBrand, a leading global brand consultancy with offices in 25 cities around the world, India and South Korea have been ranked 42nd and 49th, respec­tively, in nation brand value. FutureBrand’s annual Country Brand In­dex (CBI) ranks the world’s countries based on global perceptions in four different cat­egories -- culture, industry, economic vital­ity and public policy initiatives -- drawing insights from a collective of 3,600 opinions from 18 countries. In the latest 2012-2013 survey, Switzerland took the number one spot, followed by Canada, Japan, Sweden and New Zealand. Considering India and South Korea’s growing economic and political importance on the global economic scene, the countries’ respective ranking results could be viewed as a significant disappointment. Admitting that both countries are underestimated in the research, Lim Young-taik, chief financial officer (CFO) at Brand & Company, empha­sized the importance of boosting bilateral cooperation between Korea and India as a strategy to enhance their national brand value. “A majority of India’s brand value lies in culture and tourism, while that of Korea comes primarily from industrial sectors, such as information technology (IT) and automobile industries,” Lim told Asia-Pa­cific Business & Technology Report on Feb. 25th. “Each of their fields of competitive­ness is complementary for each other. For this reason, increased partnership between India and Korea will eventually lead to en­hanced brand value of the two countries,” he added. Founded back in 1998 with an aim of providing the best brand communication solution, Brand & Company is the first ‘total brand consulting company’ Korea has ever had. The company is a corporate partner of David A. Aaker, a professor of marketing strategy at the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley and vice chairman of Prophet Brand who is often dubbed “the father of branding”. Professor Aeker is the creator of the ‘Aaker Model’, in which brand equity is regarded as a combination of brand aware­ness, brand loyalty and brand associations. An author of more than 100 articles and 15 books on marketing and branding, includ­ing his latest, ‘Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant’, he has been giv­en three career awards for contributions to the science of marketing (the Paul D. Converse Award), marketing strategy (the Vijay Mahajan Award), and the theory and practice of marketing (the Buck Weaver Award). A member of ‘MAGNET’, a network of the world’s top-notch marketing and ad­vertising agencies, Brand & Company’s global network represents more than 800 global clients, with total annual billings of over US$1.6 billion. The five core business areas of the com­pany are: brand consulting, brand naming, brand design, brand research, and brand communication. Brand design covers cor­porate identity (CI) and brand identity (BI) designs, while brand communication includes planning and organizing global branding campaigns and promotional ac­tivities. Over the past 15 years, Brand & Com­pany has been one of the most distinctive players in all five fields. Among its clients are leading Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics, LG Chem, SK Tele­com and Hankook Tire, just name a few. “Brand & Company is the only company in the world with brand-registering know-how in more than 100 different coun­tries,’’ said Lim, the Grand Award-winner at the 2007 News People Business Awards. The company is also known as the copy­right holder of 16 books on brand manage­ment, which include ‘Brand Leadership’, ‘Emotional Branding’, ‘A Clear Eye for Branding’ and ‘Brand Relevance’. In recognition of Korean popular cul­ture sweeping across Asia (and Bollywood films enjoying increasing popularity all over the world), Lim advised that cultural partnership could be an especially effec­tive way of enhancing India and South Ko­rea’s brand value together. “For example, marketing efforts to link Korea’s industri­al brands to India’s cultural assets would help related Korean companies become better positioned in India,” he explained. z“In Korea, branding is a popular, fast-growing field of marketing research, both theoretically and practically. I believe our advanced know-how in brand manage­ment will be of much help for India to establish a strong level of brand recogni­tion.” It is for this reason that Brand & Com­pany has come up with the idea of a global brand education institute. Recently, the company launched a new affiliate called ‘Brand Academy’, which is its own way to work closely with innovative and tal­ented future brand specialists. Composed of three different tracks, namely brand manager, brand specialist and brand CEO, courses at Brand Academy combine the latest academic researches of Professor Aaker and the company’s long-accumu­lated business know-how. After finishing preliminary courses in Seoul, students at Brand Academy are given opportunities to attend classes at UC Berkeley’s Center for Executive Education. The certificate of the courses will also be given jointly by the center and the company. Jerry Lee and Katy Choi, CEO and presi­dent (respectively) of Brand & Company and two of Korea’s best-known brand consultants, lead the programs in Korea, while Eduardo Andrade, associate profes­sor at the Haas School of Business teaches the courses in the US, along with Prof. Aeker. Lim expects the new program to lay a foundation for the expansion of Brand Academy to other Asian markets, including China, Vietnam and India. “We have a great deal of interest in the rapidly growing In­dian consumer market. We aim to provide India’s up-and-coming marketing talent with decent job opportunities at Korean and global firms, as well as a high-quality education, through our courses.”